In appreciation of the Bellingham City Council’s willingness to address a resolution offered by Veterans For Peace on ending the violence in Israel/Palestine, I wish to share just two of my thoughts about why I believe it is appropriate for our city council to pass such a resolution for the sake of America.

Although I abhor and speak out against war and structures of injustice and violence, and I know that VFP speaks out on most such issues, the Israel-Palestine conflict represents arguably the world’s greatest source of instability, and a specific danger to the United States.

When one’s own government provides the weaponry and a documented 8 million dollars a day to a state which by all accounts and for whatever reasons is week upon week bombing and strafing a non-state people under its siege and occupation (whether still “official” or not), and killing innocents while targeting hospitals and refugee areas, I as a citizen of the country of that government have a profound moral obligation to call upon my representatives to demand an end to the violence.

City council is my closest part of that government; they are my most immediate representatives. May they, and may a thousand councils, show the world who we Americans really are.The author of this letter to the editor is Ellen Murphy, long-time peace activist and associate member of Bellingham, Washington's Veterans For Peace Chapter 111.

Since Veterans For Peace submitted to the Bellingham City Council a resolution opposing the violence in Gaza and the targeting of civilians, casualties on both sides have soared. And here at home VFP members have been engaged in a different conflict, one with detractors seeking to stifle debate by marginalizing those who empathize with the plight of civilians trapped in gales of shrapnel in the world’s largest open-air prison. Worse yet, attempts to trump dialogue with the anti-Semitic playing card are commonplace on the street and in the media.

It’s easy enough to assert that religious or political Zionists are the real anti-Semites by citing End Times scripture or the rising tide of global anti-Semitism resulting from disproportionate retribution on Gaza by Israeli forces, but it’s far from tactical. Meanwhile, labeling dissenters of the ongoing slaughter of innocents under siege as enemies of Israel or Zionists is a non-sequitur.

Wars have nothing to do with religion in this context, but rather land and people. People, not religions, are being attacked in Gaza – Muslims, Christians, thousands of children. By the occupying nation’s own admission targeting civilians is a measured response. And the fact that Israel calls itself a Jewish state doesn’t exempt it from International law; much less justify suppressing dissent or empathy for the dying – on both sides.

The author of the letter is Gene Marx, past Secretary of the VFP National Board of Directors, a Vietnam Veteran, former Naval Aviator, and currently a member of the Veterans For Peace Membership Committee. He lives in Bellingham, Washington and is the chapter coordinator of the local Veterans for Peace chapter (VFP-111 - www.vfpbellingham.org).

I work for the City of Bellingham, though I write this letter as a private citizen on my own time with my own resources.I write in support of the Resolution that opposes Israel’s violence against Palestinians in Gaza.I appreciate your consideration of my viewpoint, which I convey to you with urgency.

You are, no doubt, receiving feedback from opponents of the Resolution who cite that you have no right to concern yourself with matters outside of City business; they claim that such action is stepping outside of your domain.

This same criticism was hurled against Martin Luther King, Jr. when the scope of his civil and human rights efforts veered from solely domestic concerns and into the sphere of foreign policy when he took a stand against the Vietnam War.“You are over-stepping your bounds,” insisted his enemies and allies alike.According to them, King was to be relegated to a manageable quarantine of conscience.

But, as you know, it doesn’t work that way with human beings, especially those who recognize the interdependence of humanity.And the legislative body on which you now sit has veered into the realm of such greater considerations in the past, having taken bold actions that I have applauded.I urge you to be so bold in passing this Resolution.

My next point is that while each Council Member is against violence and would most likely support the portion of the Resolution that is directed to both parties in the conflict, I ask that you keep intact the language in clauses one and three that names Israel as the primary assaultive party.There is disproportionality in Israel’s violence against Palestinians that has been ignored for too long.This disproportionality—or “asymmetry of power,” as a Washington Post writer called it—is evidenced by the death toll.

Three days ago, the United Nations Human Rights Council passed a Resolution that includes the following language:

“Deploring the massive Israeli military operations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, since 13 June 2014, which have involved disproportionate and indiscriminate attacks and resulted in grave violations of the human rights of the Palestinian civilian population, including through the most recent Israeli military assault on the occupied Gaza Strip, the latest in a series of military aggressions by Israel, and actions of mass closure, mass arrest and the killing of civilians in the occupied West Bank, that may amount to international crimes, directly resulting in the killing of more than 650 Palestinians, most of them civilians and more than 170 of whom are children, the injury of more than 4,000 people and the wanton destruction of homes, vital infrastructure and public properties.”

Yes, both parties must enact a ceasefire and come to the table seeking peace in earnest.However, between the two, as the UN Human Rights Council states, there is a bigger power that must stop its assault immediately.Its unequal actions must be condemned.Through your vote, you have an opportunity to do so in a very public way.

All civilian deaths are wrong and heinous in war, but this power differential must be stated in your Resolution for your action to accurately reflect the situation.

I believe that you, as a leader, have a responsibility not just to your constituents in Bellingham, but also to humanity as a whole.I look to you to seek justice on this foreign policy matter as you have done many times in the past with similar issues.On August 4th, I look to you to not stifle or relegate your conscience to considerations that are commonly within your sphere of influence, but to make your voice heard in the condemnation of violence and pursuit of peace.Sincerely,

Council constituent in the pursuit of peace

The author of this post will remain anonymous until July 30, at which time the Bellingham City Council Meeting Agenda package will be available online. Comments in support of the VFP-111 resolution opposing the violence in Gaza and the targeting of civilians can be emailed to ccmail@cob.org.

By Carol Follett, July 20, 2014The Gordian Knot was too great a tangle for Alexander of Macedonia to untie; he simply took out his sword and sliced through it. This is a parable for the complex situation in the Middle East.

Do not try to untangle the intertwined ropes of invasion, occupation, attempts to justify each, and the constant atrocities and vengeance. We, who live at a distance, may “slice” through this convoluted hate.

This most recent Israeli bombing and invasion has thus far killed over fifty children, maimed over 600 of over 300 Palestinian deaths (mostly civilian). There is no justification for knowingly bombing children; none; not ever. No country should ever in anyway support or condone this behavior; it is contrary to the Geneva Convention and every moral teaching. The UN reported"...U.N. announced that 57,900 children would need psychological support after experiencing death, injury or being forced from their homes. The number of people who needed shelter had swelled to 94,400."

Looking objectively at this “knot,” the three strands cinching it most tightly are:

• The “stop/go” thinking of people who cannot speak out against these brutalities for fear of being perceived as prejudiced. Inhumanity is not okay, ever, by anyone, under any circumstances; neither by friend nor foe.

• The astronomical profit to international, interlinked arms ($1739 billion in 2013 alone) and related military industries made not only in the consumption and use of the goods, but also the constant fear from this war and “terrorism” increasing sells.

• The interlinked world of fossil fuel driven industries and interests. The map showing the loss of land by the Palestinians since 1945 looks like the map of Native Americans land taken by the Europeans. Looking at this map, and the map of Palestinian oil and gas both off shore and on land, I believe, the Israeli Government will not stop until they have decimated the Palestinians and completely occupied their land and resources.

The sanctioning of state violence against children and their parents cannot do anything but terrorize our own children and add to their growing sense of danger of being unprotected by the adults around them (consider the rising gun violence in our country in schools and other public places). We are all suffering traumatic stress from this ongoing and increasing violence and inhumanity. Additionally, constant images of killing, and those who celebrate these acts, desensitize many and teach that the solution to problems lies in violence, killing, and threats.

“As an adult, I’ve learned about the cleansing of Arab villages which took place from 1947-1949 to make way for the Jewish state. I’ve learned about the ongoing settlement enterprise, the appropriation and bifurcation of Palestinian lands. I’ve learned the horrors of Israel’s decades-old occupation of the West Bank, about the suppression of basic human rights and the atrocities committed…

After the funeral for the three slain Israeli teens on July 1, angry mobs of hundreds began roaming the streets of Jerusalem chanting “Death to Arabs,” attacking Palestinians and promising blood by nightfall…Chemi Shalev of Haaretz, witnessing the genocidal chants from Israelis and reading reports of Israeli police saving Palestinian citizens from the mobs, wrote the following:

Make no mistake: the gangs of Jewish ruffians man-hunting for Arabs are no aberration. Theirs was not a one-time outpouring of uncontrollable rage following the discovery of the bodies of the three kidnapped students. Their inflamed hatred does not exist in a vacuum: it is an ongoing presence, growing by the day, encompassing ever larger segments of Israeli society, nurtured in a public environment of resentment, insularity and victimhood, fostered and fed by politicians and pundits.

By nightfall, with the ink of Shalev’s pen barely dried, horrific news came that a Palestinian teen from East Jerusalem had been abducted and killed by Israeli settlers in an act of revenge, with reports revealing the unspeakable: he was likely burned alive.”

I am asking you, as my Congressional representative, to join or begin a movement with other nations to stop the terror of our world by pulling the funding out of military support for any “side.”

The United Sates should not spend billions in the slaughter of innocents. The United States should sit at the table in the United Nations and join in the true and genuine support of peace, not bark demands of other nations as though they were ours to order about.

Further, Rabbi Michael Lerner states that “Israel must end the invasion, stop its bombing of Gaza, free the Palestinians it has arrested in the past years, and abandon its insane policy of seeking security through domination…Instead, Israel needs a generosity strategy, not only agreeing to a Palestinian state in the West Bank, the release of all Occupation-related prisoners, getting the US and its Western allies to provide a massive reparation fund to support the new Palestinian state till it achieves economic and political parity with Israel, share Jerusalem as the capital of both an Israeli and Palestinian state, an end to teaching hatred and racism in its schools and media in exchange for Palestine doing the same…”

I am eager to learn what actions you take for peace now in Israel, Palestine, and all nations.

The author of this piece is Bellingham teacher and local Occupy activist Carol Follett. She is also an Associate Member of the CPL Jonathan Santos Memorial Veterans For Peace Chapter 111. She lives in Bellingham, Washington with sister, Thelma, and mother, Pearl, also long-time peace and justice activists.

"This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes."

Morpheus to Neo, The Matrix (1999)

By Gene Marx, July 8, 2014

While Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants rip through western and northern Iraq, a centuries-old notion of a pan-Islamic caliphate metastasizes in their wake of violence. To counter this advance Western protagonists, along with a cast of regional actors, are naturally spooling up for the only fix to unrest in Mesopotamia that they know, military intervention, or more accurately, blowing stuff up, regardless of global consequences.

Without a hint of Wonderland expectations, a collective sigh of relief from everyone but John McCain capped an Obama proclamation last month that there would be no US boots on the ground to jumpstart an Iraq War 3.0, despite entreaties from Baghdad, and also that the US could not "solve this problem by sending in tens of thousands of troops and committing the kinds of blood and treasure that has already been expended in Iraq."

If he had stopped there the rest of us could have taken a breath, but Obama continued:

We're developing more information about potential targets associated with ISIL, and going forward, we will be prepared to take targeted and precise military action if and when we determine that the situation on the ground requires it.

After Progressives exhaled, a brief surge of long sought optimism gave way to grizzled cynicism. Where exactly did this contingency leave our costliest foreign policy misadventure in Iraq should our "targeted" military precision be unleased, ironically to quell a protracted civil war spawned by the Bush cabal and four decades of misguided American hubris? While we wondered, Secretary of State John Kerry even upped the ante in Baghdad, promising Prime Minister al-Maliki "intense and sustained" support to counter the ISIL advance. After all, such sustained intensity worked so well the first time.

No boots on the ground, really? Unless Apache gunship pilots and embedded Special Forces units are excluded from this mix of double-speak. Intense and sustained? Or just another White House warrior flirting with the queen mother of all foreign policy blunders, mission creep, reminiscent of Lyndon Johnson's descent down a similar rabbit hole in Vietnam.

Fifty years after Congress went all the way with LBJ and his Gulf of Tonkin machinations, another false flag is on the verge of being planted squarely in the middle of another civil war, engendering wet dreams for new arm-chair warriors, and threatening an escalation in the new Islamic State on a scale unmatched since the Great War. Russia has even spotted Iraq 12 new warplanes, US and Iranian drones are sharing Iraqi airspace, Iran's Quds Force are defending Baghdad, and the beat goes on.

But history and lessons-learned have never stood in the way of a US overreach. Obama continues to play off the same sheet of music that led to a dozen year slog in Southeast Asia, only this incremental path to catastrophe is threatening to redefine quagmire. All the signs are there, from authorizing covert lethal aid to the Syrian rebels last January, to openly requesting $500 million to train and arm the same "moderates" this month; from Kerry remarking in 2013 that there was absolutely no military solution in Syria, to the US jump-starting escalation by arming rebels and a " military-lite " commitment. And increasing the US military signature in Iraq with Special Forces embeds and F16s has WWI or Vietnam sequel written all over it.

Incredibly, a mission creep stupor seems to be contagious back home with US polls showing a split on US air attacks against ISIL. Even the catastrophic bloodletting in Syria is barely an afterthought. But sending an additional 300 so-called military advisors this week, then the next to help an unpopular Shia majority repel Sunni fundamentalists in a deadly sectarian war is just another bad idea. And how soon before the next drone pilot targets, with precision, then shreds the next Muslim family in Baghdad?

Why not set our military hammer down, gently. The West, especially the US, along with Russia and a reality based coalition of the willing in the Middle East, must finally recognize that peace negotiations have been on the very same table , along with military force, since long before Archduke Ferdinand's assassination in 1914 sparked catastrophe. The major powers then chose hammers over diplomacy, setting in motion one of the deadliest conflicts in human history.

It's said that destiny is not a matter of chance, but a matter of choice, and a century and countless mass graves later another diplomatic option is still within the grasp of new adversaries. Still, where are the leaders, the diplomats, the voices for a peaceful resolution over jihad and retribution, for summits over assassination lists, when a regional diplomatic surge focusing on de-escalation and humanitarian relief throughout the Levant is the only viable alternative to another century of sectarian violence?

Admittedly, ceding our knee jerk armed interventionism to diplomacy and reconciliation will only be halting first steps, and even failing at crucial rounds of negotiations might be worse than not trying at all. But without a genuine attempt at a peaceful resolution, and soon, this rabbit hole could turn out to be an abyss, with no amount of blue pills ending the fall.

Gene Marx, past Secretary of the VFP National Board of Directors, is a Vietnam Veteran, former Naval Aviator, and currently serves as a member of the Veterans For Peace Membership Committee. He lives in Bellingham, Washington and is the chapter coordinator of the local Veterans for Peace chapter (VFP-111 - www.vfpbellingham.org).

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